On Doubling the Square and Other Phenomena

ABSTRACT: Gnomonice, the construction of clocks, is the topic of 
Book 9 of Vitruvius’s ten books on architecture. This essay examines his 
inclusion of gnomonics as a “part” of architecture in terms of the trium
phalist context that shaped the composition of De architectura, which 
Vitruvius wrote for Augustus Caesar in the early 20’s BCE, arguing that 
its author’s consistent appeal to Greek paradigms such as the origin of 
the Corinthian capital and Plato’s method for doubling the square is 
meant to enhance the imperial project by dignifying its culture of con
quest with credentials appropriated from the Hellenic world Rome had 
annexed to its own a century earlier. 
KEYWORDS: Vitruvius, gnomonics, Caryatids, Corinthian order, 
Corinth, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle